Automating assembly of bolts and nuts 1

[pratyu]

Hi all..

I have a huge chunk of bolts, washers and nuts to assemble on a very large component. It is a total pain to constrain all these (taking up as much as 2 minutes for each assembly).
Can we automate this?


My requirements are:
1. Select the bolt centre line and select the hole (in the base component) centereline and Touch/Align
2. Align washer and nut centrelines to bolt centreline
3. Touch the washer face to the base component face
4. Touch the nut face to the washer face.


I don't expect complete automation... Because I don't think NX is decisive enough to decide where each bolt has to go and sit.

All I need is, I have to SELECT the hole centre and the face of the base component and SELECT the bolt, washer and nut. After the selection is done, these have to assemble according to the steps I mentioned above.


Bonus to this is, if i can SELECT all the holes and all the parts at once, and the process doesn't require repetition...!! (Maybe I'm expecting too much?!)


Requesting you to help me out with this. I have some idea on VBA coding (I can understand if you post a code but I don't think I can code myself all of this! )

 

[JohnRBaker]

What version of NX are you running?

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[Arkance/PhoeNX]

From NX7.5 and above there is the Fastener Assembly tool (Tools -> Reuse Library -> Fastener Assembly).
It's designed to do exactly what you want.
Here's the doc page from NX8.5 that shows what it's about.

Anthony Galante
Senior Support Engineer

NX5.0.6, NX6.0.5, NX7.5.5, NX8.0.0 -> NX8.0.3.4
NX8.5.0.23 -> NX8.5.2.3 & NX9 ph15 beta

 

[pratyu]

Okay... Mine is NX 6...

I followed the instructions, somehow it is not working..
Any idea?

 

[pratyu]

According to what I understood from the NX Help is, depending upon the size of the hole, NX automatically asks us to select from its own library.

But, I have fasteners which are not standard parts. They are not in the Machine Library...

 

[daluigi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irkNOrPVUdA

 

[spadazenon]

@daluigi, Could you please give me more details for this GTS Connection Hardware Manager? Where can we find this product?

 

[EnJoeNeer]

If you have a routing license, create an assembly where each component is constrained to only the other components in the assembly and qualify it as a Routing Template Assembly. Using "place part", you can constrain the driving face of the assembly (Inside facing face of washer) and routing template assembly will strip off top level leaving you with nut, bolt, and two washers in your assembly, fully constrained. We've used this quite a bit to save time. It is currently broke in 8.0.3, but GTAC is working on it.

 

[mathisudar2007]

Hello,

Can 'Remember Assembly Constraints' option helps you here?

Assemblies→Component Position→Remember Assembly Constraints

Thanks,
Mathi K

 

[pratyu]

Remember constraints is the one that I'm using... but i need more of automation...

what other guys are suggesting seems to be customized to their needs.. If you can tell me where to get them (except for the routing license, which i need to check), it would be really helpful

 

[JohnRBaker]

In order to take full advantage of the automatic Fastener Assembly functionality the Fasteners that you're using most be part of a fully implemented Reuse library, either the ones we supplied or if you're creating your own custom library, ones that have been set-up using the same standards and tools. Note that you can learn how to properly set-up your custom library entries by following the guidelines in the attached documents.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.